Prospect Info: 2022 Ducks Prospect Rankings #10

[MMC]

It's time for our annual Ducks prospect rankings. Each poll will run for 48 hours except in the case of a clear landslide. I will go to the top 25 and include a final poll where you can pick 5 honorable mentions. Please tell me who you want me to add in the replies. In the tenth poll, I am voting for Jackson Lacombe.

As always the list will define prospects as hockeysfuture does: NHL Prospect Criteria - Hockey's Future.

2022 Ducks Prospect Rankings

1. C - Mason McTavish (+2)
2. D - Pavel Mintyukov (2022 draftee)
3. D - Olen Zellweger (+3)
4. G - Lukas Dostal (no change)
5. RW - Jacob Perreault (no change)
6. D - Urho Vaakanainen (first year with organization)
7. C - Nathan Gaucher (2022 draftee)
8. D - Henry Thrun (-1)
9. RW - Sasha Pastujov (no change)

Our graduates and departures are:

Trevor Zegras
Jamie Drysdale
Alexander Volkov
Josh Mahura
Brendan Guhle
Jack Badini
Roman Durny​

Click to read more...

 

[Arthuros]

Warren?

 

[bsu]

LaCombe I guess

 

[TheGoodShepard1]

Let's do it with LaCombe the Homie once again.

Luneau and Warren are probably the two guys who are primed to make the biggest jumps up the list if one of them explodes in their D+1 years.

 

[bsu]

Benoit gotta be before Warren the same way Vaaks had to be before Thrun imo. If Warren turns into a physical everyday nhl player you're happy. It also depends on your realistic upside for Warren I guess.

 

[Duck Off]

Helleson, again

 

[Anaheim4ever]

Helleson. Closer to NHL than the rest of the Dman prospects.

 

[DavidBL]

Sticking with Helleson. Similar production to both Thrun and Lacombe. Already making the AHL transition from college.

 

[Hey234]

I'm confused on why Helleson isn't receiving more votes? Warren, Thrun, Lacombe, and Luneau all project to be a top 4 defensemen similar to Helleson. I think Helleson has shown enough at higher levels to warrant more votes.

 

[AngelDuck]

Benoit gotta be before Warren the same way Vaaks had to be before Thrun imo. If Warren turns into a physical everyday nhl player you're happy. It also depends on your realistic upside for Warren I guess.

His realistic upside is a Manson level player - which is quite a bit higher than what Benoit can become.

 

[Zegs2sendhelp]

Luneau , after that clang

 

[Gliff]

I'm confused on why Helleson isn't receiving more votes? Warren, Thrun, Lacombe, and Luneau all project to be a top 4 defensemen similar to Helleson. I think Helleson has shown enough at higher levels to warrant more votes.

He had a rough start in the AHL.

 

[Kalv]

Went with Jackson. Really liked him this spring, he was very poised and seemed to dictate the play on both sides of the ice whenever he was on there.

Faber-Johnson took the most minutes but I thought LaCombe looked more promising.

 

[Zegs2sendhelp]

I'm confused on why Helleson isn't receiving more votes? Warren, Thrun, Lacombe, and Luneau all project to be a top 4 defensemen similar to Helleson. I think Helleson has shown enough at higher levels to warrant more votes.

I think it depends if your judging by how close they are to nhl, their floor or their ceiling

 

[Hockey Duckie]

I'm confused on why Helleson isn't receiving more votes? Warren, Thrun, Lacombe, and Luneau all project to be a top 4 defensemen similar to Helleson. I think Helleson has shown enough at higher levels to warrant more votes.

He had a rough start in the AHL.

This will be a long response. Read at your own risk. But since Ducks' hockey won't start up until mid-September, you might as well have some content to read.


Helleson 2021-22

NCAA: 32 games, 25 pts, -9 rating​

AHL, regular season: 17 games, 2 points -14 rating​

AHL, post season: 2 games, 2 points, -3 rating​

As @Gliff posted, Helleson had a rough start in the AHL. According to Defense the Nest, a blog focused on the Gulls, Helleson did get better as the season went, but the best defender on the team was Andersson, a 2018 Boston second round pick.

The mass media seems to love Helleson a lot more than the Duck faithful. Here's the Hockey News' Future Watch 2022 Ducks prospect ranking, pre-2022 draft: (no link here; I bought the physical mag)

1. C McTavish​

2. G Dostal​

3. LD/RD Zellweger​

4. RW Perreault​

5. RD Helleson​

6. LW Tracey​

7. LD/RD LaCombe​

8. RW Pastujov​

9. LD Thrun​

10. RD Moore​

=== Comparing apples to apples ===

Let's look at fellow 2019 collegiate defensemen draftees:

Thrun 2021-22:​

NCAA: 35 games, 32 pts, +9 rating​

​

LaCombe 2021-22:​

NCAA: 39 games, 30 pts, +23 rating​

Yeah, I don't see why Helleson is ranked above LaCombe and Thrun. Granted, Thrun isn't as fast as Helleson, but Thrun knows where to be and has better offense.

=== The 2022 Guys ===

Warren: I could understand why Warren is getting some love. It's the fact he's a huge player who's a physical, shutdown type. The offense still isn't there for Warren though, and he is doing it against weaker competition than Helleson. I don't know if Warren warrants being ahead of Helleson at this moment. Here's the odd thing, the Ducks have another tall, shutdown defender in 6'3 LD Hinds who actually does have scoring touch, but he isn't getting any hype.

Luneau: He had a first round ranking before the 2022 season by Central Scouting, NA. At the mid-term ranking, Luneau had a 10th overall ranking. The final CS ranking had Luneau at 24th. When you add in the CS, European ranking, then Luneau got kicked out of the first round by a wide margin. The reason behind his drop was requiring surgery during the summer on a lingering knee injury.

Although the surgery was a success, it might take some time for Luneau to fully trust his knee to regain that explosiveness. Right now, Luneau's potential really is tied to that explosiveness. If he can't regain that explosiveness, then he's a dead duck in the water to recover defensively to make an instant push offensively. Luneau's got a lot of talent, but because he lost his explosiveness is the reason why Warren gets selected over him. Helleson has his burst, which was on display at the Ducks Dev camp. Thankfully, Luneau has time to work on that burst with his knee. Our goalie Stolarz needed like two seasons and three franchises to fully recover and regain confidence in his knee again. It's a huge gamble on Luneau regaining that burst, again, which is why he dropped to the Ducks in the middle of the second round.

I think Helleson should be ranked higher than both Warren and Luneau this off-season. Next off-season could be different, especially if Luneau's knee and burst are fixed.